


We're Breaking Free

by Tea_For_One_Please



Series: Multifandom Tumblr Prompts [7]
Category: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Feelings Realization, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, One Shot, Set During S1E10, tumblr gift exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:00:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24336268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tea_For_One_Please/pseuds/Tea_For_One_Please
Summary: This work was originally written for @caitlinesmewilliams on Tumblr as part of a gift exchange!It shows some of the events of S1E9-10 from Nini's point of view, including her reconciliation with Ricky.
Relationships: Ricky Bowen/Nini Salazar-Roberts
Series: Multifandom Tumblr Prompts [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1708696
Comments: 6
Kudos: 41





	We're Breaking Free

**Author's Note:**

> @caitlinesmewilliams, if you're reading this, I hope you enjoy this! I don't have a wattpad account or I'd have posted it on there so I could tag you in it, but I'll cross-post it to Tumblr as well.

In a rare moment of quiet, Nini sits backstage, quietly strumming. Her chords clash a little with the familiar beat of ‘Getcha Head in the Game’, barely audible from the makeshift stage in the school gym. She didn’t plan on bringing her ukulele tonight, but on her way out of the door this morning, she grabbed it on impulse and took it with her. As a good luck charm, perhaps. _I need it now more than ever,_ she muses with a dry smile, thinking of the talent scout from the Y.A.C., Kalyani Patel, out in the audience.

She relaxes a little, though, as she reflects upon the first act thus far. She can’t deny it’s been… a little chaotic, particularly with Gina’s surprise return, prompting a very sudden cast change which, she thinks with a grimace, probably seriously confused the audience. She’s pretty sure they pulled it off, though, and Gina’s incredible dance break in ‘Status Quo’ made it worth it.

Suddenly the sound of drums pulsing through the walls stops, and she pictures Ricky, suspended on wires at the turning point of the song. And she smiles – something she’s finding herself doing a whole lot more lately, when she thinks about Ricky.

That said, on this particular occasion, she’s not sure whether she’s smiling at the thought of Ricky himself, or simply remembering what happened when they first used the wires at the dress rehearsal yesterday.

Most of the cast had been sceptical when Mr Mazzara, of all people, had arrived at their first meeting after the disastrous tech rehearsal, and told them that his robotics club had constructed a pulley system in the gym by which they could lift Ricky off the ground for the scene.

When they tried it, however, it worked fairly well – the harness held, and it turned out that Ricky was perfectly capable of singing whilst being hoisted up. The problem came when the industry-grade steel cable made Natalie’s hands sweat, and she lost her grip.

With a terrified yell, Ricky plummeted about eight feet before EJ and Seb seized the cable, halting Ricky’s gut-twisting descent and leaving him spinning in his harness, seven feet from the ground. A nervous laugh rippled around the gym as Carlos, looking distinctly pale, proposed using one of the climbing ropes instead. Ricky was white as a sheet when they brought him down again, but he quickly saw the funny side and was laughing with the rest of them.

Nini shakes her head fondly, but frowns as she realises that the production has been silent for a weirdly long time. The band stopped playing almost twenty seconds ago, and Ricky’s only supposed to wait about five seconds before giving them his cue line. Suddenly, though, the music starts up again, and she lets out an involuntary hum, hoping that there’s nothing wrong.

Less than a minute later, she sees someone – who looks suspiciously like Ricky – march past the open door. She carefully puts down her ukulele and jogs to the door to ask him how the scene went, but by the time she gets there, he’s disappeared. She looks the other way, where Kourtney, Carlos and Seb are looking in the direction Ricky vanished. Nini’s unnerved by how concerned they look.

“What happened?” she asks, as Big Red’s voice sounds over the speakers, announcing the intermission.

“We’re not sure,” Kourtney says with a shake of her head.

“He sort of froze,” Seb adds. “While he was in the air. And he dropped the ball.”

“Why, what’d he do?” Nini asks.

“No, as in, he _literally_ dropped his basketball,” Carlos says, widening his eyes to emphasise the point.

Nini feels her heart sink. “Did he say where he was going?”

Carlos shakes his head, but Kourtney speaks up. “He’ll be back for the second act.” Her voice is confident, and Nini hopes she’s right.

“Gabriella, you’re on in one minute!” Natalie calls, and Nini relaxes. They’re about five minutes into the second act, and as far as she can tell, nothing has gone completely wrong. She follows Natalie to the wings and, as rehearsed, looks around the set and the gym as she walks casually onstage. This is right; this feels good.

“Wow, this is your real stage?” she says curiously, but her voice shakes on the final word as her gaze falls on EJ, wearing Troy’s basketball shirt. _Ricky’s_ basketball shirt. No. No, this is wrong. _Where the hell is Ricky?_

“Guess you could call it that,” he replies, looking altogether too relaxed in this topsy-turvy situation. “Or, just a smelly gym.”

It kills her to break character, but she _has_ to make sense of this. “What’s going on?” she hisses, surreptitiously covering her microphone with one hand. “Where’s Ricky?”

EJ frowns minutely and, without replying, passes her the basketball. She narrows her eyes at him as she catches it, but dutifully makes a shot, watching with a bizarre sense of satisfaction as it misses the hoop and bounces off the backboard. “Whoa!” EJ says, jogging across the stage to retrieve it. “You shoot hoops too?” She stutters; she’s suddenly having difficulty breathing. Ms Patel can’t be impressed by this; she has to do better.

“I once, uh, scored forty-one points at a league championship game.”

“No way.”

“Yeah,” Nini says, functioning purely on autopilot. The words are muscle memory to her, but she can barely hear them. Her mind is swirling. “The same day I invented the space shuttle, and microwave popcorn.”

The rest of the scene is a blur. Again, on impulse, she whispers desperately to EJ for an explanation, infuriated by his plea for her to trust him. At her cue, she all but runs offstage. As she exits through the temporary stage door, she can hear the words of Ashlyn’s beautiful song taunting her from behind.

_What I did felt right, but was I wrong? Is this where I’m supposed to be at all?_

Everything after that passes in a blur. She’s _so_ angry, at everyone. At Ricky, for bailing on her – on them. At EJ, for letting him go and just taking the part so readily. At Miss Jenn, for casting her in this role she feels she’s so abjectly failing. At Kourtney, for inviting Kalyani Patel when she’s sure she’s never going to get in. At herself, for thinking she could do any of these things.

She kicks a chair backstage in fury, feeling her heart pound in her chest as she watches it topple over and skid across the wooden floor. A figure bedecked in an elegant black pant suit appears in the doorway, looking worried.

“Nini, you okay?” Miss Jenn’s voice is soft and full of concern.

“Will be,” she says, pressing a hand to her temple. “Just… a lot going on.”

“I heard about the talent scout,” she says. “It’s not surprising that you’re stressed.”

She nods slowly. “It’s not just that. But thanks.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, and Nini hesitates, picking up the chair she kicked and sinking into it.

“I guess I’m just scared of screwing up,” she says quietly, and Miss Jenn lets out a low chuckle.

“Are you serious? You’re killing it out there.”

“Thanks,” she says, not even slightly believing him. “But this is not my best performance.”

“It’s not supposed to be,” she says, and Nini does a double-take.

“What?”

“Nini,” she says, crouching down in front of her and taking her hand, “I spent nearly fifteen years assuming that my best performance had already happened.” Nini nods, wondering where she’s going with this. “But the truth is, it turns out you guys are my great performance. My _magnum opus_ , if you will. This isn’t Broadway, Nini – no one here is looking for the perfect show.” She cracks a smile. “Which is good, because God knows we haven’t had it tonight.”

Nini laughs and sniffs, feeling her eyes moistening.

“This _isn’t_ going to be the best performance of your life," Miss Jenn says, "because you’re only going to keep getting better. That talent scout is looking for _potential_ , and that’s what she’s going to see in you.” She squeezes Nini’s hand and stands up to go.

“How do you know that?” Nini asks desperately, and Miss Jenn pauses at the door.

“Because _I_ did.” She smiles once more and disappears out of the door. After a moment’s thought, Nini exhales deeply, gentle wipes her eyes and follows her out.

By the time she’s back onstage, she’s forgotten her anger. EJ’s explained what happened – what Ricky told him to do, and why. She’s not even concerned about the Conservatory anymore – as EJ begins the chorus of ‘Breaking Free’, she remembers what Miss Jenn told her: she saw Nini’s potential. Maybe Kalyani Patel will too.

And then she sees Ricky, standing at the gym doors with Gina, and the last embers of her fury at him evaporate as well. As EJ lets her go – possibly in more ways than one – she looks into Ricky’s frightened eyes, and she realises that she loves him.

“ _You know the world can see us, in a way that’s different from who we are…_ ”

As she walks towards him, she pulls out her phone and flicks on its flashlight. Since Big Red hasn’t put a spotlight on him yet, she’ll do it herself.

“ _Creating space between us, ‘til we’re separate hearts…_ ”

He shakes his head and murmurs, “I’m really… not at my best.” And her heart aches because of how wrong he is. She’s known him for nearly their entire lives, and this, right here, is the best version of Ricky she’s ever known. He’s open and vulnerable, and he might have given up on something he was committed to – but this time, he did it entirely because he wanted her to succeed.

“Just look at me, Ricky,” she says, slipping her phone back into her pocket as Big Red finally gets his act together. “Right at me.” The music starts up again, and Nini lifts the microphone to her lips again. “ _But your faith, it gives me strength_ …” A grin breaks out onto his face as he joins in. “ _Strength to believe…_ ”

She can’t help smiling as she pulls him back to the stage. They’re going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm @tea-for-one-please on Tumblr, please do leave a comment, or else hit me up on there!


End file.
